The weak point in the hunt for collusion between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian government during last year’s U.S. election is this: “collusion” at that level requires a degree of planning, preparation and organization. Discipline and co-ordination. Fine minds, working in tandem. Trump and his people have none of that.

The world has been made painfully aware that the Trump campaign, and now the Trump White House, would have a hard time colluding over what to order for breakfast, much less develop and operate a secret cabal able to connect with the Kremlin and effectively utilize whatever information it might provide. Moscow might have hard-eyed operatives willing to plot against Hillary Clinton in league with U.S. allies, but they’d find no one at the other end of the phone in Trump’s Washington. The maximum period of reasoned contemplation the president can manage is the time it takes to fire up his Twitter account.

The Trump presidency is an amateur hour on a massive scale. Donald Junior, currently flailing around in search of an alibi that will explain his gormless willingness to engage in an e-mailed exchange with a British music publicist eager to set up a meeting with a “Russian attorney” who would share some dirt on Hillary Clinton, acquired via a Russian pop star and his billionaire father.

The publicist, Rob Goldstone, is a former tabloid reporter who now runs his own publicity operation and seems to have emerged whole from the pages of a John Le Carre novel – the slippery Fleet Street hack with a Rolodex of dubious contacts and just enough access to important people to plunge everyone into an international scandal.

No sensible political person would have responded to Goldstone’s approach as Donald Jr. did, with an eager reply and a promise to meet as soon as possible. The proposal Goldstone passed on—to share some unspecified ugliness about Clinton that originated with “the Crown prosecutor of Russia”—was a scandal waiting to happen. Only the dimmest of people would fail to appreciate the implications involved in agreeing to co-operate with a hostile foreign government to smear an opponent. That the country in question happened to be Russia only adds to the battiness of the plan. But that’s just it: Donald Jr. didn’t have a clue that what he was doing might be a bad idea. What’s more, neither did his brother-in-law Jared Kushner or Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort. Three of the supposedly brightest minds in Team Trump couldn’t spot anything amiss about communing with Moscow against an American presidential candidate.

Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort.Matt Rourke /
AP

Of course they couldn’t. It would take a semblance of awareness to grasp that you don’t work with Russia against a fellow American. Trump’s campaign wasn’t a professional political operation by any definition. It was a slapdash, disorganized, amateur effort run by eager-beaver supporters rich in enthusiasm but short on judgment. Kushner’s main qualification was that he was married to Trump’s daughter. Manafort’s most significant previous posting had been with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief toady in Ukraine.

They should have been crushed by the Clintons. That Trump managed to win anyway speaks to just how inexplicably awful the opposing Democrat campaign proved to be. Trump’s people had the excuse of inexperience: they didn’t know what they didn’t know, and Trump himself was in no position to help. He appears to know nothing more about the world than he sees on TV, and only Fox TV at that. Clinton had 25 years at the centre of Washington politics, a bottomless pit of money, a husband who’d won two elections, and a raft of loyal admirers eager to help her fulfill the destiny she felt was hers by right. Trump won despite epic displays of ignorance; Clinton lost despite having every advantage possible, and fumbling it away.

Unfortunately, the uniqueness of the situation required Trump to learn nothing from the experience. He’s no better at running a government than he was at operating a campaign, but no longer has the benefit of an opponent who’s busy defeating herself. If anything, his administration is even more chaotic and amateurish than his campaign. His wall with Mexico has been all but forgotten; Republicans are hopelessly split on healthcare; North Korea is testing missiles it hopes will reach Alaska; and he returns from an overseas tour to find himself even deeper in the mire of a Russian scandal that’s haunting him like a phantom.

Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Trump, and her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner, arrive before a press conference in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 15, 2017.Jabin Botsford /
The Washington Post

And he has no idea how to deal with the scandal that has engulfed him. He blames the media, the Clintons, the Russians, “the single greatest witch hunt in political history.” He looks for someone to fire. He insists the mood in the White House is “fantastic,” and that his administration is “functioning beautifully.” He is reminiscent of no one more than “Comical Ali,” the Iraqi spokesman who insisted everything was fine with the Saddam Hussein administration, even as U.S. tanks were trundling down Baghdad’s main thoroughfare.

Trump’s spokespeople no longer pretend to have any explanation for the mess they’re in. They can’t explain Don Jr. any more than they could explain his father. It’s government by amateurs, and not smart amateurs at that. Donald Jr. is just another reflection of its ineptitude: keen as a bunny but hopelessly out of his depth.